Chad and the Parakeet
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: A hollow spirit targets Ichigo's friend. He and Rukia are forced to go after it. A series of shorts based on the story of Bleach from Rukia's point of view. 4
1. Chapter 1

There was never any agreement as to how their partnership should work and Ichigo never said that she could stay at his house or sleep on the sheets in his wardrobe or borrow his sister's clothes, but, after the first night, he left the window of his room ajar; it felt like as much of an invitation as she could expect.

They fell into a routine: making their separate ways to school, but walking most of the route back together. Rukia would slip back into his house through the open window. In the quiet time, while the family ate in the room downstairs or Ichigo helped his sisters with their homework, Rukia slept with the hollow detector resting against her chest. Usually, she woke a little time later to find him in the room, either sleeping or reading, but, on the fourth day, he woke her himself with a tray of food and his usual frown, as if he did these things with reluctance:

"Do you eat?" he said.

"Regularly."

And, after that, he brought a share of every meal to his room. She would eat while he slept and they waited for the hollow detector to buzz.

At first, she spent most of her time in the cramped cupboard, checking bulletins from Soul Society. When this became painfully dull, she took to sneaking across his room to where a book-case was crammed with Manga and fantastical stories. Quick as lightning, she would snatch one, often while he slept, and return to the to the safe shadows of the cupboard. This continued until, one night, he pointed out to her that there was no need for her to stay in there the whole time. Hence, a week on, she had become accustomed to sitting on the floor of his room, reading magazines and comics from the human world. Sometimes, she sat at his desk and tried out the brightly coloured pens on scraps of paper she found there. Since he never stopped her or complained, she assumed he didn't mind.

His was a bright, peaceful world. He didn't speak much and the silence was a comfort to her. It lacked expectation, authority and demand. He spent most of his spare time alone in his room, she discovered. At no point did she factor herself into that equation. It wouldn't even have occurred to her.

Having discovered that she ate and drank like an ordinary human girl, Ichigo started bunking off of school at lunchtime. He took her to the local mall and paid for their lunch. Since she'd never tasted fast food before, her reactions amused him. He seemed to enjoy these trips until, one morning, nearly three weeks after their first meeting, he shoved a paper bag into her hands:

"It's a packed lunch. We high school students aren't made of money, you know."

After the morning's lessons, she followed him up onto the roof. It was a fine day and, through a wire mesh fence, they had a glorious view of the city, shining in a heat haze. Rukia stood staring at the tightly packed grid of roads and tower blocks, while Ichigo sat back on his heels and unpacked sandwiches and bags of crisps. It was a fine thing, she thought, helping herself, to be standing here in the sunshine eating human food in the human world. Her own life seemed very, very far away.

In amongst the food were boxes that appeared to be drinks of some kind. When she picked one up, she could hear the liquid sloshing around inside. Yet, try as she might, she couldn't figure out how to get into it.

"How do you drink this?" she asked Ichigo.

"Just put the straw in."

"Straw?"

"Yes, straw."

But his explanation was interrupted as the door at the top of the stairs opened and two students spilt out onto the roof. Rukia recognised them both as boys from their class.

"Ichigo!" A broad grin spread over the smaller one's face: "You've decided to join us again." Mizuiro looked younger than he really was, yet his appearance was always immaculate, from his perfectly-ironed shirts to his slicked-back hair. In contrast, the other boy was tall with a mane of unbrushed hair; Asano wore his shirt untucked and his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders and he had a bluntness of manner that never failed to catch Rukia off guard:

"Ichigo!" he cried as he saw them. "You brought Kuchiki-_san _to have lunch with us! Oh, Ichigo! You will never know how grateful I am!" With that, he put his hands on Rukia's shoulders: "Welcome! Welcome to this garden of manhood!"

"Er….. Thank you?"

"A party! We're going to have a party in your honour, Kuchiki-_san!"_

It was only then that it occurred to Rukia that she was out of place in this scene. She had observed the behaviour of high school students: the males tended to group together with the other males; the females with the females. If Ichigo had known that she would stand out here, then why had he brought her? And why had the attitude of his friends altered so dramatically? "If there's anything at all that I can do for you, Kuchiki-_san, _just ask," Asano said.

Rukia glanced down. The boxed drink was still in her hand:

"Well, actually….."

"Ignore him, Rukia-_chan,_" Mizuiro said, approaching her for the first time: "We're humbled that you've joined us."

"Watch out for him, Rukia. He looks innocent, but he's a real womaniser," Ichigo said, grinning.

"How can you say that, Kurosaki-_san? _Rumours like that could damage my reputation! And, anyway, she's perfectly safe with me. I only go for older women."

"That's exactly why I'm telling her to be careful."

He had made a joke, Rukia realised, and one that only she would understand. When she glanced over, he was watching her, the hint of a smile on his lips.

A third boy, Chad Yasutora, joined them then. He was also nominally in their class, Rukia knew, though he skipped school even more often than Ichigo and rarely wore a uniform. This went unquestioned by the teachers, perhaps because, at over six foot, with tanned skin and wavey black hair, he already looked out of place at the school. Like Ichigo, he was a man of few words. Perhaps they enjoyed one another's long silences because the two seemed, to Rukia, to be close friends. Today, he strode up to their little group and, without a word, placed, in their midst, a cage containing a white parakeet.

"A parrot! You got a parrot, Chad!" cried Asano: "Does it talk?"

The bird responded:

"Hello, my name is Yuichi Shibata."

Asano went wild with delight, going down on hands and knees by the cage to see if it would say more, but Rukia stiffened. At her side, Ichigo stopped eating and stared intently at the cage.

He knows, she thought. He's learning. She knelt down beside him while the other boys cooed around the cage:

"You felt it too. There's a spirit in that parakeet. It's not a hollow; just a lost soul, but we should perform _khonso _on it. Tonight."

He scowled:

"Another night without sleep."

"Shut up."

"Hey," Asano was saying: "Where did you get the bird, Chad?"

"A man gave it to me," Chad said slowly. They waited to see if he would elaborate, then Asano shook his head:

"That's it?"

"Yes."

Ichigo had noticed something else:

"How did you get hurt, Chad?" There were bandages on the boy's right arm and leg.

"A steel girder."

"A girder?" Asano exclaimed: "Chad, you must have skin like iron!"

"And, on my way home, I was in a motorcycle accident."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, I took the driver to hospital."

Asano laughed nervously:

"You're a tank, man. You're a tank."

They moved off then, Asano, Mizuiro and Chad, chatting about the parakeet, about school, about the lunch their parents had packed for them. Rukia watched them go and gave a start when she felt the box she had been holding taken from her hands. Ichigo tore something plastic from the side, a thin tube, and poked it into the top of the box before handing it back to her.

"Straw," he said. She tentatively took a sip of the liquid. It was sweet and tasted of fruit. Welcome on a hot day.

"Thanks," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

That evening, when Rukia returned from school, the house was quiet. The lights were off. There was no sign that Ichigo had been home at all. No satchel thrown down by his desk. No half-read book on the pillow.

She knelt down beside his chair and checked the latest news from Soul Society. More often than not, she did this with resentment now, reluctant to bridge the connection to her old life. For some time now, the time that she had spent living someone else's life, she had found herself free of unwelcome memories, free of shame. It didn't matter who she was in Ichigo's world; it didn't matter what she had done.

By the time she had finished checking the bulletins, it was dark outside. She sat there, not daring to turn the light on for fear of betraying her presence. But it was hard not to worry. Had they all gone on a family outing? Ichigo wouldn't have been so foolish as to go anywhere without first telling her, would he? If he encountered a hollow alone, he would have no way of accessing his powers or leaving his body. If she encountered a hollow alone; well, she might have more chance. It had been three weeks now; most of her powers should have returned, though she'd not had cause to test them yet.

The front door slammed. There was a sudden tumult of noise in the house below, footfalls on the stairs, and Ichigo's form framed by light from the hall outside. He closed the door and crossed the room in darkness. The desk light flicked on and he physically started when he saw her. Had he forgotten she even existed?

"Rukia. Chad was brought into the clinic today. He has a wound on his back. It's not – normal."

"A hollow?"

"I think so."

She hesitated, sending that he wanted an answer, a word that would set everything straight, perhaps give him a purpose and something to pursue. He had been working in his father's clinic tonight then. He looked exhausted and his eyes were raw though there was no sign her had been weeping.

"Is he badly hurt?"

"He'll come through."

"When hollows aren't active, they hide in the Dangai, the world between worlds. We can't track them there." She waited for her words to sink in, then added: "There's really nothing we can do until morning."

He nodded and flopped down on the bed. Rukia didn't need to be told that this was the end of the conversation. She took a book from his desk and slipped into the cupboard.


	3. Chapter 3

She awoke before the alarm sounded. Outside, I was still dark and the orange glow of a street lamp was the only illumination, crawling in between partially drawn curtains. It revealed an empty bed, the covers thrown back. Rukia sat with the cupboard doors pulled side, her bare feet hanging down against the folded sheets. She couldn't hear him in the shower and his clothes were gone, so was he in the clinic already?

He was afraid for Chad. So afraid, she guessed, that he'd not slept all night.

Staring at the empty bed, she felt strangely lonely. She slid to the floor and dressed slowly, whiling away the minutes as a pale dawn sun crept up from behind the houses. When Ichigo returned, she was dressed for school, sitting neatly on his bed, one leg folded over the other.

"Chad's gone," he said: "He left in the night. He didn't tell anyone." She took one look at his face and heard the edge of fear in his voice and, calmly, she said:

"Let's go and find him then."


	4. Chapter 4

The streets were deserted. It was too early for children to leave for school and too late for night-shift workers to be coming home, so she and Ichigo had the footpaths and alleyways of Karakura to themselves. "There's just no way we can track it until it leaves the Dangai," she was explaining. She had the hollow detector ready in her hand, willing it to pick up a signal.

"You said yourself, there's a spirit trapped in that parakeet. I bet Chad has it with him. He had it in the clinic last night. So if we could track its spiritual signature" –

"You couldn't. Not on something that weak."

"Why not? It's just a matter of finding it."

He was learning quickly. Rukia didn't want to explain that, even with her full spiritual powers, she wouldn't be able to track down so frail a spirit signature. Beside her, Ichigo had stopped walking and was concentrating, eyes closed.

An instant later, she felt a surge of spiritual energy., like a wave, so unexpected and so strong that it nearly swept her off her feet. Suddenly, the street was crowded with ribbons: thin, silken ribbons, extending vertically into the sky as if great streams of air were licking them up from the ground.

Rukia took a sharp breath:

"Spirit ribbons." She could see them. At least some of her powers had returned then, but: "That's an advanced _shinigami _technique. It's impossible for you to" –

"Got it!" Ichigo's eyes snapped open. He took two paces forward and snatched one of the ribbons out of the air. Around them, the others fell away, dispersing like mist into the sunny morning. He stared for a moment at the one he held then let it too disintegrate in his palm: "Come on," he said, and he began to run.

Rukia kept pace. Disquieted.

She knew he had exceptional spiritual pressure, for a human being, but it was one thing for him to be a source of raw power and quite another to watch him use a technique that would usually require years of training. True, he showed no finesse. He had caused every spirit ribbon in their vicinity to manifest. That, in itself, should have been a drain on his powers. And yet he showed no sign that it had affected him. How did he know about the ribbons, anyway? Perhaps he hadn't, until that very moment. All he had done was search for the familiar signature of the spirit he had sensed in the bird and the ribbons had manifested as a consequence, but he had known how to use them. How? How was it as natural to him as breathing?

Chad was standing at an intersection, leaning against a wall to catch his breath. When Ichigo and Rukia were close enough to call out to him, he started and then, without a word, began to run. He was still clutching the parakeet's cage to his chest. "Idiot!" shouted Ichigo: "Why run away?" He started to follow, but, as he reached the intersection, he was apprehended by a small figure. "Karin!" he cried as it collapsed into his arms. It was his sister.

Rukia took several paces past him, trying to keep Chad in sight. When she looked back, Ichigo's face was awash with emotions. His sister, it seemed, must have followed them from the house, but he was clearly ill. He lifted her in his arms. Her eyes were closed and her skin was waxy pale.

"What's wrong with her?" Rukia asked.

"I don't know. She was sick this morning. Why did you come after us, Karin? Karin, wake up, please." He straightened, looking from his sister to Rukia: "We have to follow Chad."

"Ichigo, with her here, you won't be able to concentrate. Take her back to the house. I can go after your friend."

He hesitated, then nodded:

"I'll take her back. I'll be quick."

"Alright then."

"Rukia, what happens if a hollow manifests?"

"Don't worry about me. I think I can handle a hollow, don't you?" She smiled at his concern.

Reassured, he nodded and, holding Karin aganst his chest, turned back in the direction of the house.

Light-footed on the tarmac, Rukia ran on.

Chad was fast and she was slow.

They'd turned into a wide street with high walls on either side. Chad was broadening the distance between them and she was becoming more and more aware of a stitched pain in her chest. _Gigai _were made to look like humans, but why, she wondered, were they granted only human abilities? As a _shinigami, _despite her diminutive build, she was supernaturally fast. Her _gigai, _which retained her outward appearance, had none of that strength or skill. It had the body of a young girl: physically fit, for certain, but slight and weak. She was out of breath before she reached the end of the road. And all this, it seemed, was enough of a distraction to make her let down her guard.

"A death-god," said a voice. Not one voice, but many. Chad had disappeared around a corner ahead. She was alone in the road and it came from behind her, a sweeping shadow as tall as a house. Making her skin crawl. "What have we here?" it sneered: "I think it's a death-god."

Rukia sprung back as the hollow snapped at her. She had enough time to see its wide, empty-eyed mask and a beast-like body. Then it came at her again.

Instead of running, she dodged the swipe of its paw, launched herself at its shoulder and, from there, grabbing clumps of its hair, pulled herself onto its back. As she put her hands between its shoulder blades, she was cursing how much easier this would have been without the _gigai. _Still it was one hollow. Just one. And she was not without a means to defend herself.

"Heels of the blue sky, fingers of the north, jagged lightning of the east, open the doors of the west. Break down the south. _Hado no san jou san, sokatsui!"_

Power coursed through her, tearing itself from her wrists in a burst of blue fire. She felt its impact, felt herself bowled backwards from the hollow as it yowled in pain.

She landed awkwardly. Human bodies, it seemed, did not take well to being dropped from a height. The hollow was wailing and she should have felt relieved. Instead, she instinctively knew something was wrong.

Howls turned to laughter. It wheeled back towards her:

"What was that?" it screamed: "Is that all you have, death-god?"


	5. Chapter 5

**If you enjoyed this story, please check my profile page for the next in the series . It lists them in order so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. Thanks!**


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